DURBAN – GERDA Steyn’s status as a firm favourite to win the women’s race in Sunday’s Comrades Marathon is a given.
Sure, there are some competitive runners who are likely to run her close. But you are not going to find punters putting high odds against her not winning.
The men’s race on the other hand is not so clear-cut. As it is, predicting a winner is tantamount to attempting to tell dark blue from black in the dark – impossible.
But that has never stopped us from trying to play Nostradamus, has it? And I am not going to start now and shirk out of having a go.
The South African in me of course wants one of our own to keep the title home. And there are a few athletes who can do just that, the standout being defending Down Run champion Morena Tete Dijana.
Equally motivated will be his club mate yet adversary in the form of Piet Wiersma. The Dutchman has to be considered a possible winner given how close he ran Dijana in 2023.
Wiersma showed with that compelling run for a second spot that it is possible for a foreign rookie to win the race.
There is one such rookie brought here by Maxed Elite in the form of Frenchman Guillaume Ruel who could pull the rug from underneath the aforementioned duo of Nedbank, a club he previously ran for.
The 27-year-old who stands at a strapping 1.87m was in South Africa three years ago for the Nedbank Runified 50km where he ran the European record at 2:47:23.
He said on Thursday during the press conference that he’s here on a reconnaissance trip and will be returning to be competitive the following year, explaining that he’s not fully fit having had an Achilles operation earlier in the year.
That could well be. But athletes are known to play down their chances and with his kind of speed – he boasts a 2:14:48 standard marathon PB – and the fact he holds the French 100km record at 6:13:41 9:51 suggests he is going to be pretty competitive.
The Comrades Marathon is renowned for being unkind to highly-rated foreigners though and few have had their noses bloodied by the world’s most famous ultra.
In recent years the locals have dominated the race, with the Nedbank Running Club having won it in the last four years.
Dijana’s teammate and captain Edward Mothibi was a winner in 2019 and his second and third place finishes in the previous two Down Runs suggests he should not be overlooked.
Like Dijana, he had a poor run last year finishing 16th and while he says he is simply going for a top 10, the reality is that the man they call Slender has it in him to push for glory.
Their former teammate Joseph Manyedi who won the veteran’s category with his fourth-place finish has found a new lease on life at Maxed Elite. He has all intentions to get a podium finish for his new employers who will have the battle-hardened Teboho Sello once again pushing for glory.
He has all intentions to get a podium finish for his new employers who will have the battle-hardened Teboho Sello once again pushing for glory.
The Comrades stalwart that is Bongmusa Mthembu remains a force of the race even though it appears that his glory days are long gone, but cannot be completely written off.
And then there’s three-time gold medalist Gordon Lesetedi who is coached by the champion-producing John Hamlett who has said he is going for victory
On the face of it, this could easily be a two-horse race between Dijana and Wiersma.
But such is the unpredictability of the Comrades Marathon that the winner could well come from left field. We are in for an intriguing race this weekend.
